Saint John the Apostle

Between that thunderous nickname and those words about love lies the long road of a man shaped day by day, not a sudden miracle. He was not born gentle and holy. He was hot-tempered, eager for position, asking for very earthly things. Only by staying close to the One he loved, year after year, did he slowly learn what it really means to love.

That day, when Jesus passed along the shore and called out, the two brothers were sitting in the boat with their father, mending a torn net. Hearing the call, they left their old father among the hired men at once and followed him without hesitation, without even time for a proper goodbye.

He was chosen as one of the three closest disciples, along with Peter and his brother James. He was there when Jesus took the hand of Jairus’s dead daughter and called her back to life. He was there on the high mountain, gazing on his Master’s face transfigured in blinding light. And he was the one his Master led deepest into the darkness of the Garden of Olives, on the night when his anguish was so great that he sweated blood.

Still very young, he saw human life at its extremes: power that conquers death, the dazzling glory of heaven, and suffering so deep it was almost despair. Those things cannot have been easy to reconcile in his young mind. Only after walking the whole way of the Cross to the Resurrection did John truly understand that God’s love has never stood outside human suffering, and certainly never turned away from it.

As the youngest son of a family with means, John must have been used to a somewhat more comfortable life than his companions from poorer homes. Leaving the boat and nets, for him, was not simply giving up a livelihood, but giving up a position, a security that not everyone is willing to trade. Perhaps because he had been sheltered as a child, in his early years with the Master he had something of the indulged young man about him, one who had never had to learn to give way to anyone.

And that was not all: the two brothers even had their own mother go to the Master to ask a special favor for them — that one might sit at his right and the other at his left when he came into his glory. Jesus looked straight at them and asked a hard question:

“Can you drink the cup that I am about to drink?”

Then he used the moment to teach all the Twelve a lesson at the heart of discipleship: whoever wants to be great must be the servant of all, for the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Scripture does not hide these blunt, rather rash episodes. Because of that, we do not mistake holiness for a gentle temperament someone is simply born with. John was as full of zeal as any young man, but that early zeal was still mixed with possessiveness, and with the craving to stand above others.

For anyone carrying responsibilities in a parish or a church group today, John’s story is not strange at all. People can be very fervent, very devoted to their own work, and still have to learn again and again to open their hearts and rejoice when someone outside their group does something good. John went through each of those painful lessons long before we had to learn them ourselves.

At the Last Supper, that disciple sat right beside Jesus, leaning his head on his Master’s breast to ask quietly which of them would betray him. And then, on the afternoon of Good Friday, when all the other disciples had scattered in fear, only that disciple still stood firm at the foot of the Cross, right beside Our Lady. In his last agony, struggling for breath, Jesus looked down and spoke his last wish:

“Woman, here is your son.”

Then he turned to the disciple: “Here is your mother.” From that very hour, the disciple took Our Lady into his own home.

Early on the first day of the week, hearing Mary Magdalene come running back with news of the empty tomb, John and Peter raced there at once. He was younger and faster and got there first, but respectfully stopped outside the entrance, letting Peter, the eldest, go in first. Then he went in after, saw the burial cloths lying neatly folded, and he believed, though he did not yet understand it all. Later, one early morning with the mist still hanging over the shore of the Lake of Tiberias, while the disciples were still peering uncertainly at the stranger grilling fish on the shore, it was John’s keen eyes that recognized him first, exclaiming softly:

“It is the Lord!”

That close bond gave John a particular gift: a keen eye that could recognize love even in the smallest signs others usually missed. It was not some strange talent for knowing everything, but simply the natural sensitivity of a heart that belonged entirely to its Master.

In his letter to the Galatians, Saint Paul names John, together with James and Cephas, as pillars of the early Church. After that, Scripture tells us nothing more of John’s own travels; he quietly steps out of recorded history.

Ancient Christian tradition places his last years in the city of Ephesus, in Asia Minor — a flourishing city famous for its colossal temple of the goddess Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, drawing pilgrims from all over the Mediterranean. Preaching one God in the heart of a city devoted to a goddess must have clashed fiercely with a whole polytheistic religion at the height of its power. And yet he held his ground there and lived to a great old age, something rare among the Apostles, most of whom shed their blood in martyrdom early on.

In that same tradition, his name is also linked to the small island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea — where the emperor Domitian exiled those he considered enemies of the state — and to the book of Revelation, so full of powerful images. On the island there is still a small cave today, said to be the place where he received the vision to write that book. Since ancient times, scholars have asked whether the author of Revelation is truly the same person as the Apostle. So the picture of John on Patmos should be received with due care, not turned into an exile with fixed dates as if from a chronicle.

At a time when the communities of the late first century were suffering persecution after persecution, the book of Revelation lifted the eyes of believers to the Lamb who had been slain and now stands in triumph. Suffering is neither hidden nor glossed over in its pages, but hope is something no earthly power is strong enough to put out.

Another legend, not found in Scripture but handed down by many ancient Christian writers, tells that before his exile to Patmos, John was taken to Rome and thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil before the city gate, but came out completely unharmed. Though the historical truth of this story cannot be verified, the image has been kept as a sign of a life preserved through every hardship, so that he could live to a rare old age and see with his own eyes the Church he had followed from its very first days spread throughout the empire.

That love, in his letters, is never a distant, abstract theory. It has a very concrete, very real face: Jesus bending down to wash each disciple’s feet, loving them to the end, giving his whole life, and inviting those who follow him to love one another just as he loved them first. John’s letters also ask bluntly: how can anyone say they love God, whom they have never seen, if they close their eyes and turn away from a brother or sister in need right beside them?

The Church celebrates Saint John the Apostle on December 27, right after Christmas. For believers who take him as their patron saint, his life is an invitation to grow little by little in charity: to be less hot-headed and impulsive, less busy fighting to be right, to know how to be quietly present beside others when they suffer, and to be willing to take on duties we did not choose for ourselves.